OSLO, Norway — Nobel Peace Prize Laureate María Corina Machado appeared to have been on her way to Oslo when the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee denounced the Nicolás Maduro regime’s crimes against children before introducing her daughter.

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, suggested on Wednesday that Machado was set to arrive on Thursday.

“Although she will not be able to reach this ceremony and today’s events, we are profoundly happy to confirm that she is safe, and that she will be with us here in Oslo,” the chair said during the ceremony.

Machado’s daughter Ana Corina Sosa, a Harvard graduate based in New York City, delivered a statement and read her mother’s speech before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.

“In just a few hours, we will be able to embrace her here in Oslo,” Sosa said. And she later added, “She wants to live in a free Venezuela, and she will never give up on that purpose. That is why we all know, and I know that she will be back in Venezuela very soon.”

Machado’s 84-year-old mother, Corina Parisca Pérez, and her three sisters also traveled to Norway. They had hoped to have a family reunion before the ceremony at the Oslo City Hall.

“My heart is beating like a baby waiting for Santa Claus,” Pérez told Local 10 News while standing next to a Christmas tree at the Oslo Gardermoen Airport.

“I just want to be near her,” said the laureaute’s sister Clara Machado, who traveled with Pérez.

In a recorded phone call that the Nobel committee published on YouTube, Machado said she was getting ready to board a plane after people had “risked their lives” for her trip to be possible.

“I am very grateful to them, and this is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people,” Machado said, according to the post.

Machado, who has been in hiding, has used live videos to participate in public events, but hasn’t made any in-person public appearances since she stood with a group of protesters on Jan. 9 in Caracas.

“I will be able to embrace all my family and my children that I have not seen for two years and so many Venezuelan, Norwegians that I know share our struggle,” Machado said during the recorded phone call.

Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez were also among the large crowd of Machado’s supporters who traveled to Oslo. Salazar said Machado had shown that she prioritizes Venezuela, democracy, and freedom.

“The world now sees Nicolás Maduro for what he is, and also sees the courage of Maria Corina Machado,” Gimenez said.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute is hosting the “Ballots not Bullets: The Democratic Pathway to Peace” forum, with Venezuela as an example, on Thursday at the University Aula in Oslo.

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Nobel committee chairman on Machado: ‘She will be with us here in Oslo’

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Andrea Torres